US Gran Prix Finals, New Jerseyby Brent Prenzlow

On Thursday after work, I flew overnight from Los
Angeles to Philadelphia with my teammate John Behrens. We
did that so that we could be there on Friday to practice
the course. The flight tired us out, but we got a few laps
in on the course and it was looking good.

Day 1

This was a very fast wooded course with 2 deep sand
sections and a run up through an amphitheater. It was a
lot of fun to ride. I had a very good start on the #1 bike
and made it from the third row into the top 10. Things
were going great when my rear derailleur acted up again. I
thought this was fixed as Mark found the rear barrel was
close to being unscrewed all the way. Obviously this was
not the problem. I went into the pits and changed bikes
(myself) and got back into about 20th. I worked up to a
group around 15th and things were going well until I had a
spectacular endo in the sand pit. I was in the middle of a
small pack and couldn't see some deep sand holes that had
formed. Tyler Johnson (Richard Sachs) also endoed behind
me and he landed head first onto my bike twisting my bars
severely.

I tried without success to straighten my handlebars so I
had to enter the pits again. I thought my #1 bike was
unusable, but some friendly folks had "fixed" it for me. I
found out after the race that they had noticed my chain
was lodged between my chain ring and chain guard; thus the
grinding sound I had been hearing. I was able to complete
the race on the #1 bike for 21st place. The big revolution
was finding out what was wrong as this has been a mystery
to me for 2 months now and has hindered me in 4 uci races
this year.

I was too tired after the race to clean and prep the bikes
so we returned to the hotel and left the clean up for
tomorrow.

Day 2

We drove 2 hours north to Highland Park. It had rained
hard overnight and turned the nice grass park into a muddy
cross course. I began preparing my bikes when I got a bad
surprise. I was planning to ride the #2 bike, but quickly
realized it was not useable as the rear shifter wouldn't
shift. There was also a large dent in the top tube. Both
of these mechanicals were from Tyler Johnson impacting my
bike in the sand pit yesterday.

I was forced to complete the whole race on the #1 bike
with the front chain ring/chain guard issue. My start was
not as good as yesterday and I was sitting around 30th. I
gradually started picking off riders and moving near the
top 20. Of course, the chain got lodged between the ring
and guard again during the race, but I was able to reach
down (while moving) and pick it up and place it back on.

I could've really used bike swaps, but it wasn't an option
with one bike. I did what I could (popping wheelies on the
paved sections to dislodge some of the mud off my front
brake and fork) to keep it from completely clogging. I
kept going as hard as I could and I ended up placing 17th,
which put me into 20th overall for the Final Series
rankings. I was very happy that my Time pedals kept
working all race despite a lot of mud and grass caked on
the shoes and pedals.

After the race, I packed up in the dark and we drove down
to the Phily airport to fly back to Los Angeles. It was a
long haul and we were back home at 2:30 a.m. PST.